Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Do You Know The Way ...

Beautiful downtown Amherst, in the shadow of UMass

Pretty soon visitors to our bustling city-like community disguised as a quaint little college town will be able to find their way around in style.

Using a $10,000 "Downtown Initiative Program" grant from the Department of Communities and Housing Development the town hired Mark Favermann to design a new logo for the town to use on all signage, starting with the downtown.

 Branding & Way Finding Working Group found its way to Town Hall this afternoon

Favermann told the working group -- made up the town officials, business and academic representatives -- that signs perform four basic functions:  Identity, informational, directional, and restrictions.  But they all should tie in via color scheme, font or graphic.

Favermann presented 5 basic design concepts each with slight tweak using a different color scheme for a total of 15.  Planning Director Jonathan Tucker told the group to narrow it down to three and Favermann would work with them and come up with new variations.



The group quickly voted down option #4 calling it the "haunted house" design and option #5 which was supposed to be the twin trees on top of Mt Pollux, but don't really look all that great without benefit of the hill they overlook.

 Select Board Chair Alisa Brewer was concerned about using a tree image  for downtown signage

BID Director Sarah la Cour also presented a hand drawn design showing a skyline with the outline of three buildings and a tree, but did not want it photographed for public consumption just yet.

Another meeting will be held the first week of October that will include extensive public input.

Final draft designs will be presented to a joint meeting of the Select Board and Planning Board in late October or November.

 Town Mgr John Musante (yellow shirt) and Assistant Town Manager Dave Ziomek (pink) attended

The Select Board, as "keepers of the public way," have the final say.

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Dickinson Museum just installed new signs only last month (that don't include iconic Dickinson Homestead graphic)

16 comments:

Walter Graff said...

Wow they paid this guy for this crap? Remedial logos that are nothing but copies of what exists in various forms around Amherst and captures little for the imagination.

Anonymous said...

Hi Walter
Slow news day in your hometown of Sunderland?

Anonymous said...

I think the Homestead logo is very attractive, far superior to anything in the presentation.
I'm guessing that "A Learning Landscape" is a definite? That sounds really, really horrible, hardly friendly or welcoming, more like saying, "All right, you're here in Amherst, you're here to learn". Reminds me of something one might see on a sign for a museum.
Richard Marsh

Larry Kelley said...

Yes "A learning landscape" seems to be the working tagline at the moment, although a couple folks did point out it sounds a little fuddy-duddy -- especially for a town with a demographic having the lowest average age in the state.

Anonymous said...

Amherst soon will be a museum...

Anonymous said...

Madame Tussaud's House of Nitwits

Anonymous said...

Ha, I would love to see that. Vince, Hilda, and the rest immortalized in wax

Anonymous said...

Why not use the beautiful Town of Amherst flag instead? It looks great.

Anonymous said...

Good point, such a pretty flag. Why not that? Maybe on 9/11 they can put Amherst flags up all over town. So pretty.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Mount Pollux, I understand from the Bulletin it has been allowed to deteriorate. Are we now going to honor the two trees at the top of the hill, while the rest of the orchard is allowed to die off? Very sad, the views used to be very nice up there.

Anonymous said...

I hate "Learning Landscape" as well. Don't we already have the Amherst A+, signs downtown (or something similar)? These new samples seem completely uninspired.

Anonymous said...

Amherst A+ stinks.

Anonymous said...

What an absolute, disgusting, total, waste of money!! Who are these iditos anyway who can throw money out the door like this? Things that make you go hmmmm......

Anonymous said...

My favorite new word is "Iditos". Thank you 8:34!

Brief definition of "Iditos"=small temptations.

It's the opposite of "super-egito"

See "The Egito and the Idito" by Frito

Anonymous said...

Yes, who designed the Emily Dickinson signs? They are very good!

Anonymous said...

"out of" ! Damn autocorrect.